PITY PARTY

Well, a couple days ago, I had myself a pity party. Definitely not because of my life now, my life is great. I instead had a few thoughts about my childhood. I rarely think of the past anymore and I'm not sure why I did at this time. I think it may be because recently I have been given copies of some letters my grandmother wrote at the time when I was young. She lived with my family the entire time I was growing up. My siblings read them as well and I found all of our reactions interesting. She seemed to make an attempt at holding herself back from her negative feelings but since I lived with her longer than my other siblings, I knew they were there. I feel that some of my siblings read the letters with rose colored glasses on. I would not consider myself a pessimist, but rather a realist. I actually consider myself an optimist but then again I bet most people think that. She was not a bad person but she also was not the wonderful person that some may see. When I gave this kind of response to my siblings, I sort of got the impression that a couple of them looked down on me. Mind you, I did not go on and on about negative things, I just felt as if I jokingly pointed out a couple of things. To be honest, I was a bit annoyed at one sibling in particular. This sibling said that my grandmother was a very positive and kind person and insinuated I was not because I was not being nice when I talked about my experience with her in my childhood. The fact is, she was not really positive and she was not really kind. I'm very big on the philosophy "actions speak louder than words." You may write words that make you appear nice but how do you actually live your life? What's funny about the entire thing? I think she actually sort of liked me better than some. You would think that if anyone saw her with rose colored glasses it would be me.

For myself, it made me look at how I live my life. I think maybe my situation is the opposite. If someone read letters/emails that I've written they would think that I am not such a good person but knowing me personally they would see me as a nice person. In reality, I try to live my life in a positive way. I am acutely aware that my actions speak louder than my words. I try to raise my children in such a way that they will look back fondly and think that I was a good mother. I think that I often times show my love with my actions. I can never be sure, but I can hope that my kids will remember these things.

On the other hand, no one is perfectly happy all the time and sometimes my writings, words and actions reflect this. I thought about whether I would change myself and decided that I can not pretend to be anything other than myself. I've decided that instead of pretending I will try to follow the advice my mother liked to give, "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all." I will apply this to my emails to my siblings in particular. I will not always be successful but that is okay with me. That's why I have a category on my blog called "complaints." I'm much safer writing it here than sending it out to relatives! I rarely look back on my childhood with fondness and when I do, it's never with a fondness for my relatives and I can't pretend things were different but I can keep my mouth shut.....like I most often do with a few occasional slips here and there! It's much better for my mental health to not dwell on the past. That is good advice to follow...

TORN MENISCUS

I really believed that if anyone would be unable to hike Mt. Washington it would be me. So far so good, I seem to be holding up pretty well but I don't want to jinx myself by talking too much about it. Unfortunately, Tom is the one who may be unable to accomplish this feat. On our "get in shape for Mt. Washington" hikes he has been having knee pain, especially on the downhill portions. I told him that if there was any hope that he'd be able to make Mt. Washington he needed to go see our friendly orthopedist. After poking, prodding and bending Tom's knee, the doctor declared that he thought it was a torn meniscus (hence the title to this post). He needs to follow up with an MRI to confirm but we trust the talent of diagnosis of our doctor. He agreed to give him a cortisone shot right before we climb the mountain and eventually he will need surgery....sigh. We've decided that he can climb up but will take a van down the mountain and hopefully keep from damaging it further.

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

I realized right from the moment I considered climbing Mt. Washington with the family that it was going to take a lot of work to get into shape. After all, I've spent the last couple of years working very hard at getting out of shape. All that laying around watching TV was quite a job! I've been impressed with how long the family has been willing to put up with my constant suggestions for various hikes. Until recently, they agreed without much objection. Now however, they groan every time I say "we need to go on a hike!"

When we went to Knoebel's for a few days this week I was nice enough to let Erin and Sarah forgo the hike that Thomas and I had planned. They happily pranced off to the amusement park while Thomas and I went zipping in the the van over hill and dale. We arrived at Nescopeck State Park about 45 minutes later. Leaving the parking lot, we looked for the entrance to the "Mountain Loop" trail. We should have known that things would not go well when we spied it off through a tangle of prickers! About half of our hike was through gawd awful, leg grabbing weeds, bushes and more prickers! Looking on the bright side, we found a few wild raspberries that tasted good and we hiked an incline that Thomas said was similar to a portion of Mt. Washington (pant, pant, huff, puff). We won't mention the fact that the raspberries were right beside the parking lot and we didn't really need to go on the hike to find them.... Not surprisingly, the incline was not located on the Mountain Loop but instead it was on the Oak Trail. The Oak Trail had very few oaks. A good portion of our time I complained about the upkeep of the trails. "They have that big beautiful visitor center.....THAT ISN'T OPEN!!" "All they would have to do is drive an ATV over these trails a few times and it would take care of all these bushes!" "Did the people who named these trails even hike them??" Even Thomas chimed in with "How hard is it to paint a few colored squares on the trees?!"

(Pause to get ice and ibuprofen for Thomas's finger that he slammed down while tripping on the stairs - broken or not broken that is the question of the day...)

We emerged from the undergrowth battered and bleeding and wondering if any ticks had reached our underwear. Well, at least I was bleeding, Thomas was unscathed. After Thomas made a trip to the well appointed porta potty (meaning it had plenty of toilet paper) we collapsed into the comfort of the van's air conditioning. In regards to our hike I said "I'm glad I did that!", without any sarcasm. I guess I am a glutton for punishment.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT ME...

Yesterday I went to an appointment at the Jefferson Headache Center. It wasn't a bad visit but it wasn't really good either. Other than to say it was sort of weird I won't say anything more. It was just a follow-up, they've helped me tremendously and nothing needed to be changed so none of it matters.

What I really want to say is that I met a "girl" who is 28 years old. She has had a continuous migraine since she was 16 years old! She started getting occasional migraines at the age of two! Many times when I go to the center, I meet people like this who are worse off than me. She was a positive person who has learned to live with her problem. She went to college and now works full time. She down plays her migraine problem with her work colleagues because she doesn't want them to treat her differently. She is married but has no kids because she realizes that at this time she may not have the stamina to raise them the way she would want. Her philosophy in life is to accept how things are for her and at the same time, keep hope that things will get better and possibly even be migraine free one day. She has a sister who is 31 who recently had an increase in migraines and now gets them everyday. She is having trouble accepting this new life. The woman I was talking to told me that she thinks it was easier for her to accept than her sister because she was so young when it all started. I talked about my acceptance of my new life and told her that I never thought that it's possible that it might be more difficult for me because I was in my 40's when it all hit the fan.

Now for the part where I like something about myself. She told me that it was nice to be able to talk to someone about what she goes through. She says that she doesn't just kick up conversations in the waiting room and doesn't get a chance to talk to people about it. I've always said that I can find someone to talk to anywhere. I think part of my success comes from the fact that I am truly interested in what others have to say. I really do listen as well as talk myself. I like this about myself and felt happy that she said what she did. I could tell that I was a bright spot in her day.

STRIATION DISTURBATION

Our library recently had a book sale. My daughter, Erin, went with a friend and because she is so generous, she purchased a gardening book for me. The book is about intensive gardening and getting the most out of your garden. I have been reading some of it and skipping around a bit. I saw a section on double digging and decided to read it over since I've been doing my version of double digging this year.

As I began to read, I had no problem when they started off by saying that removing the sod was one of the most difficult parts of digging. I ignored the fact that I would be happy to have sod to remove instead of the weird bushy roots we have. We only have sod in places that we've fertilized heavily. I pushed to the back of my mind that sod removal would have been the easiest part for me. I brushed over my observation that they didn't have any real photographs and the diagrams didn't show a single rock being dug out. Then I was even okay when the book said that you must dig down two feet. I told myself that it was alright because I had dug down at least a foot and in one bed it was probably a foot and a half.

What came next in no way resembled what I had done in my garden. In my garden, after digging a huge hole, I added a thick layer of semi decayed wood chips. The thickness of the wood chips varied depending on how deep the hole was. Then I began to add a combination of the original soil, peat moss and cow manure. I threw in a bit of pellet fertilizer as well. I alternated materials and mixed and fluffed and mixed and fluffed some more until I was sweating like a pig. (Sweating is a new thing for me that has developed now that I'm in my forties) In the end I had a bed of the best soil I've ever had.

What the author had written was that I should have been carefully removing the soil as to not disturb the natural layers...they may have used the word striations and I think that means layers but the more I think about it, I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that I was not careful and I knew I must have messed up those "striations", whatever they may be. As a matter of fact, since I was adding so much cow manure, peat moss and wood chips, I removed the worst clumps of clay, threw them into a wheel barrow and dumped it as far away from the hole as possible! If that didn't mess up those striations, I don't know what would!

Then, I'm not sure but I don't think they even mentioned anything about adding material to the bottom of the hole! Again, I guess that would disturb those striations. After all, soil doesn't randomly have a layer of wood chips a foot below the surface! I planted carrots in the first bed I prepared and now I'm thinking there could be problems. What if the carrots grow down and suddenly come to those wood chips? Will they panic and scream out "where are the striations?" On the other hand, if they make it that far, they would be three times as long as any carrots that I've ever grown and I wouldn't really care if they stopped growing. In fact, they may think "this is different; I love the quirkiness of that woman."

So, as I was reading what I should have done, my eyes began to glaze over. Erin walked by, pleased that I was reading the book she gave me, and asked "do you like it?" I replied that it was a bit complicated but I still enjoyed reading it. She said that she had noticed that it seemed complicated. What I said is true and although I like to read all gardening books, I always find that my version of doing things never matches what I should be doing. Maybe that's why I have so many failures...

HIKING

During the past four years, I've slowly turned into a big marshmallow. Mind you, I've been a marshmallow for many years but now I am a big marshmallow! I used to be in pretty good shape as far as my muscles were concerned but then all my health issues started. First my thyroid went kaput. Then my brain decided migraines were a good thing. My iron became depleted. Physical activity made me feel worse, much worse. So I sat, and sat and sometimes laid down to rest. I've gotten really out of shape and can no longer do the things I've always loved to do. Well, at least not as much as I've always done. It's hard for a person to get older and realize that each year your body slows down but for me the slow down from my health issues was fast and drastic. It's taken me a long time to get my health back on track. I'm still not totally there because I just had to change the dose of my thyroid medication in December (2009), I still sometimes get migraines and I constantly have to be careful to keep my iron level up. I know I am feeling better but to some degree, I've learned to ignore the side effects of these health issues. I've been able to increase my activity level. I had planned to do it slowly but sometimes I've tended to overdo it.

Besides gardening, one of the things that I've missed is hiking. I think my whole family has missed hiking since I was always the one who got us in the car to go explore a new trail. In February and March I started by getting back to my walks around the community. We have some moderate hills where I would get out of breath and feel my heart pounding. I wondered if my iron level had dropped but I kept it up. After awhile I saw some improvement. "The Knob" that overlooks the town of Milford is accessed by a rather short but steep hike. I've always wanted to hike it but have never gotten around to it. That was my new goal. At the beginning of April, just before Easter we went on the hike but got sidetracked and I never went to the overlook. The perfect reason for hiking it again the following week! Although I had never made it to the overlook on the first hike, something even more important to me happened. I got back my hope that I really would get back into shape. I began to form an idea. I want to hike Mt. Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire!

Quite a few years ago I had made the statement that one day when the kids were older we would hike up Mt. Washington. I'm guessing that was at least six years ago. Thomas will be 18 years old in September so he would have been 11 or 12 back then. Old enough to be excited and looking forward to the hike. It's been a long wait but now Sarah is 13 years old and old enough to make it....I think. So we've started to get in shape for a trip to NH towards the end of July. What I've discovered is that Sarah is in much better shape than I thought and I'm in much worse shape than I thought!

I'm in the worst shape of the family and although Tom is much, much better than me, he is next in line. It's hard to say if Erin is better than Sarah or vice versa because they are pretty much the same. Thomas, of course, is the best. He could hike the mountain tomorrow without a problem. Actually, everyone could hike the mountain tomorrow except for me! I think everyone except for Thomas would really be hurting if they hiked tomorrow but they could at least make it. Yesterday, Thomas told me that he thinks I would be able to make it right now also, but I have my doubts.

Since April, when I told everyone that I wanted to hike Mt. Washington, we have been trying to hike every weekend. Thomas and I have gone on a couple extra hikes - me to catch up to everyone and him for encouragement! He can be quite an inspirational motivator! I also think my new found gardening energy has helped me build some muscles. I've joked with everyone that I'm not sure how heavy everyone is breathing because I can't hear them over my own gasping!

Our goal as a family is to get strong enough for everyone to be able to make it without being in agony. We know it's still going to be tough but if everyone were in agony we would more than likely turn back. I think my individual goal may be slightly different than everyone else. I would like to be able to just make it, agony or not. What a satisfied feeling I would have! Unfortunately, I know that there is always the possibility that I won't be able to do it. Sad but always a chance. I cannot control certain things in my life and my health is one of them. I do know that barring a major setback, I can at least start the hike with everyone. It's important to me to face my reality because acceptance of these facts helps me move on. I guess I'm trying to live in the moment.

So, we've (I've) made some major strides. Pun intended. Yesterday we hiked around 4.5 miles through the steep inclines of our area. We took a rather long route to end up at Dingman's Falls. We had been surprised to discover that it was a back route to the falls. We hadn't known that is where we would come out and had walked about 2.5 miles to get there. We had quite a laugh to discover that when we followed the creek back to our car on a more direct route, it was only about a half mile away! Ha ha ha! The entire 4.5 miles took us about 2 hours. The distance is about the same as the hike up Mt. Washington but the elevation change is not the same. The hike up Mt. Washington should take between 3 and 4 hours one way so that can give you an idea how steep it will be! It's hard to get a hike that is near the equivalent.

So it's nice to have a new and exciting goal and especially exciting for it to be a goal involving physical activity!

RECYCLING TAKE TWO

I've recently learned that the recycling program in our county has made some significant improvements.

First let me explain what it used to be like. We have to drive to a recycling drop off point. It used to be that they only took plastics and glass. I would save all my items and when I got enough I would travel around 7 miles to the drop off point. Many times I would find the bins full and have to bring my stuff home. After I had been putting all sorts of plastic containers into the bins I saw a public service announcement on television that announced that I was not supposed to be putting plastic "containers" into the bins. They did not mention which numbers were allowed so I was left to guess what was okay and what was not okay. The final nail in the coffin of my recycling efforts was the fact that they said that it was a crime to make what I saw as mistakes at the recycling center and that there were video cameras watching me! Since it already was a pain in the neck to have to save the stuff, I finally just gave up. It was causing me way too much stress.

Last weekend my daughter was with a friend who was running some errands with her mother. They ended up going to the recycling center and she came home and told me that they had made some positive changes. You can now save magazines, cardboard, food boxes, junk mail etc. They now list plastics #1-7. You no longer have to separate anything except plastic bags. So I decided to see for myself and brought a small bag of recyclables to the center. Sure enough things were definitely better. I had rinsed out everything but didn't get the peanut butter container clean. I read a memo inconspicuously taped onto the side of the bag bin that was quite pointed about cleaning the containers. They specifically mentioned peanut butter jars and said that if I couldn't get it clean that I should just throw it out at home. They warned me that I "shouldn't ruin it for everyone!"

So, although they seem to still be a bit nasty about the whole affair, I plan to make a second attempt at recycling. However, I will not let myself become stressed about the process.

YES VIRGINIA, YOU CAN KILL RHUBARB

Rhubarb is one of those things that is supposed to be extremely easy to grow. I think this is why I find it so depressing to have so much trouble growing it. When I google information on growing rhubarb, I find tons of people who tell stories of their rampant rhubarb. They take years to kill it off in areas where they no longer want it to grow. They describe ways that they abuse it and it still refuses to die. Even my own mother told me that my nephew who owns a landscaping business had brought some rhubarb home that he had dug up from someone's yard. It was unwanted rhubarb so he threw it in a pile. My mother came along and "felt sorry for it" so she turned it over. It flourished in that spot. When I was visiting she helped me dig some up to bring home. That was two years ago. It's no longer doing so well. Last year I figured that I would have to give it a year to recover. This year I kept thinking, maybe it needs a little more time. Now, I am plotting ways to "help" it. The word "help" can be freely interchanged with "kill". This is the sort of story I can tell regardless of what plant I am talking about. I can seemingly do things exactly how other people do them with far different results. I'm thinking of one day writing a book titled "The Brown Thumb Guide to Gardening" with a subtitle of "How To Kill Off Most Any Plant". I'm not sure if I should include photographs or hire my daughter Sarah to draw pictures, or maybe a combination of both.

RASPBERRIES

I received six raspberry plants from Gurney on Tuesday and planted them Wednesday. They pretty much look like I gathered some sticks from the woods and jammed them down into the soil. The roots looked a bit dried out but I am hopeful that they are still alive because all but one had at least some sort of living growth sprouting off. The written info that came with them said not to worry, that they were "dormant" although they looked almost dead. I am thinking that Gurney says this so that people don't immediately ask for new ones knowing that if people wait to ensure that they are dead, most people will not bother to contact them for replacements. I however will contact them because I only bought the 6 and it ended up costing me $20 on sale. Being a ULTRA cheapo, I rarely spend $20 on anything. I prefer to get things free from others. I am totally willing to give away my extras like the strawberry plants that I dug up to make a spot for the raspberries. So, although I am hopeful that they are not dead, the few times that I've ordered plants through the mail, if they looked dead, they were dead!

HOPING FOR MIRACLES

I will be using this watering can a lot this year. I'm hoping the Miracle Gro will actually work some miracles!

After taking this picture, I realized that it sort of looks like the watering can is floating in the air but actually it's just hanging on a skinny fence post.